Join the FUN at 2023 Shasta Renaissance & Fantasy Faire!

Where: Shasta County Fairgrounds in Anderson (about 10 minutes south of Redding)

When: Memorial Weekend (May 27-28)

Kaotic Mythicals is actively looking for volunteers that like to have fun, dress up in costume, good interacting with children of all ages &  like to camp to join us at upcoming festivals! 

By being an active participating member of Kaotic Mythicals you will get in FREE to the event in exchange for your time & energy helping to run our activities. 

We need volunteers for help with setup on Friday, May 26, staring around 1pm until we get finished.

We need help running our activities both Saturday, May 27 & Sunday, May 28.

Faire runs 10am – 6pm on Saturday & 10pm – 5pm on Sunday. 

We can use additional help with final packing & load out the morning of Monday, May 29.

If only available part of the time, that is okay as well. We do ask for a minimum of 4 hours. 

This is purely a volunteer position though you will be getting into the event for FREE with time to enjoy the festival plus be shown appreciation with hand-made goat’s milk soaps made by Bradley.

You will be able to enhance your resume by adding volunteer educator with a nicely written job description.

We are providing hands-on science education to visitors of all ages.  Hiring managers do like to see volunteer work on activities & interests.  

Trying to feed yourself at a festival or faire can be pricey at around $10+ per meal. We do community meals like a family. We provide dinner for those who help with setup on Friday, 3 meals on Saturday, & 3 meals on Sunday. We bring a case of bottled water.  We do encourage everyone to bring snacks to share.  

Don’t know what to wear or don’t have anything to wear? We have you covered. By letting us know in plenty of time ahead, we will bring loaner garb for you. 

We camp on-site.  We also can bring loaner sleeping bags/blankets and provide tent space for you to camp as well. 

The minimum requirements to worry about is having the time available to go, getting there or carpooling with one of us. pack a small bag of toiletries (toothbrush, deodorant, etc). 

The yard combines the front end for the activities with the back encampment right behind using popups that are covered. Around the encampment we will be hanging canvas walls & tapestries. Inside the pavilions we will be setting up tables for the activities, hanging up tapestries & decorations, and getting everything ready for Saturday morning. The back encampment will be setting up the bed chambers & our kitchen/lounge for the base camp. We have space in the encampment for bed rolls after hours. 

How can you help & be a part of the fun? 
Help us setup the encampment, run our activities, &/or help us pack it all up to loadout. 

What you will need? 
– Bedroll (air mattress/cot/sleeping pads, sleeping bag &/or blankets, & pillow) – Overnight bag with basic toiletries (toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, etc.) – Garb, if you have it or let us know in advance for loaner garb – Underwear is required at all times during open Faire hours – Comfy clothes for afterhours – Snacks too share

We will provide meals, bottled water, some snacks, a safe place to sleep, training for our activities and a great fun environment to escape for the weekend. Plus a feather in your cap for your resume.

The activities are very easy to run:

•  ROLL THE STONES: Have the visitor roll the pair of dice & add them up. You look on the chart for the first name. Have the visitor roll the pair of dice again & add them up. You look on the chart for the 2nd part of their name. Write their elf, fairy or dwarf name on a name tag & present them with their new Fae name. We do ask for a dollar donation for Roll The Stones. If they don’t have a dollar, we ask them to sing & act out “I’m A Little Teapot”.  In lieu of signing, they can read aloud “Prayer Of The Woods”.      

• MYTHICAL MIND: Have the visitor choose a number 1-60 quietly in their mind. For younger visitors, have them whisper the number to an adult or older child with them. Have them look at each of the 6 cards carefully asking them to see if their number is on the card. If their number is on the card, leave it face up. If their number is not on the card, flip it upside down. Based on the cards showing you determine what their number is using the magic that we will show you and pretend to read their mind. When you are confident that you have their number then you reveal to them what their number is by saying it, pointing to it or coming up with something cute to say. The ability to add numbers quickly in your head is the key to this.

• PETTING ZOO / BONE ZONE: We have a collection of real animal fur scraps & pelts along with a collection of animal skulls. Hand the visitor a fur scrap/pelt and ask them to think of what animal they think it came from.  Give them clues about the animal to help them. Each piece of fur has a letter code on the underside. There is a list which tells you what the animal is based on the code. We allow visitors to pet the furs with the back of their hands only, we do not allow fingers on the pelts to avoid oils being transferred which will ruin the pelts.

•  RUB-A-BUG: Educate the visitors that before we had magic soul capturing devices, those things they hold in their hands and spend lots of time looking at & poking their fingers on, field researchers had to sketch what they saw on paper with charcoal or lead in a pencil. Another way they captured an image to bring back was to do a rubbing.  They used charcoal to do most of their rubbings. We get to cheat a bit using crayons. Have the visitors choose a bug plate to do a rubbing. Lay the paper over the plate & lay the crayon on its side and demonstrate how they rub the crayon sideways over the plate to capture the image on paper.  They get to take home their rubbing as a souvenir. 

• LIVE BUGS: We bring live Giant Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches for visitors to pet & hold.  They are cleaner than cats or dogs. They do not like being dirty at all & almost always are cleaning themselves.  We handle them allowing visitors to pet them and those that are willing, we let hold them. We have them put their hand out flat, palm side up. With holding their fingertips, we gently place the cockroach on their hand. 

• ESCAPE ROOM: This activity is for a group of 3-5. Hopefully they have read “Prayer Of The Woods” & done the Petting Zoo prior though not required.  As most escape rooms go, you have to solve a series of puzzles to escape the room. Our Escape Room they solve a series of puzzles to escape the fairy from the locked cable. Their is a laminated sheet with instructions and most of the answers to help you run this activity. In order to move forward to the next puzzle, the group must be in agreement of their answers. First, they must identify 4 different scents. They must identify different fur scraps & scat replicas, determine which items contain tree products or not. Then they must correctly identify different mythical creatures or nature items, flip over the pictures and unscramble the phrase. The answer to the phrase is the combination to the lock. If they get stuck, they can jump out to read “Prayer Of The Woods” to help them.

• TRACK MATCH: A collection of real animal track casts where we show visitors a picture of an animal that they have to identify & try to guess what track cast belongs to the animal. Visitors get to see how good of Nature Detectives they are. The collection is 40 species from North America, a total of 42 animals. 

• ECO STATION: This is a collection of museum quality specimens of real bird nests, tree cookies and wood pieces damaged by critters.  We let visitors examine the cased bird nests on the table, help them figure out what type of tree the cookie slice is from and let them examine the wood pieces damaged by carpenter ants, wood beetles, heart rot, beaver, fossilization & ask them what made the damage on the big chunk of wood.  

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